The present invention relates to an ice making device, and more particularly to an ice making device that produces flaked or shaved ice, as well as a process for making ice.
Ice is commonly produced by application of water onto one or more freezing surfaces of a drum. A refrigerant is provided to the drum and is in thermal contact with the one or more surfaces. As the refrigerant absorbs heat from the water, the water will freeze on the surfaces forming an ice film. The ice film thickness and ice production rate can be determined by several variables including but not limited to, the water application rate, rotation speed, and the rate at which the refrigerated surface absorbs the heat from the water as ice is formed.
An ice removal blade can rotate along and score, or otherwise scrape, the ice to remove the ice from the refrigerated surface and clear the surface. The separated ice may fall out of the bottom of the drum. Water can be applied to the freshly cleared surface, starting the process all over again. Thus, the device can continuously produce ice, which is beneficial and desirable in many commercial and industrial applications.
As mentioned above, in order to freeze the water, refrigerant is provided to the drum, typically in a shell. The shell can comprise a flooded design (wherein the space is entirely filled with refrigerant) or a circuited design (wherein the space includes one or more flow paths for the refrigerant). It is believed that the circuit design is more advantageous to the flooded design because of greatly reduced refrigerant inventory and more simple piping and controls.
With the advent of multi-component high temperature glide refrigerants, (such as R-407a, R-407f, and the like), it is believed that the conventional evaporator designs fail to fully utilize the heat absorption capacity of these refrigerants. Additionally, flooded evaporators are not well suited to work with high temperature glide refrigerants due to the fractionation of the components of refrigerant blends.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have an ice making device that fully accommodates the multi-component refrigerants.
Additionally, it would be desirable for such a device to work with single component refrigerants and relatively low temperature glide refrigerants.